insulation

Losing weight is actually kind of terrifying. It has taken me many years and at least one failed "relationship" to realize that being fat is safe. It insulates me in more ways than just thermally.

Being fat is an easy excuse for being single. With each pound I lose, I begin to notice my singleness a bit more. I start to think about other characteristics that could repel men, and the list is not short. The failed "relationship" I mentioned occurred at my highest weight and ended because of my personality. That can't exactly be remedied with a strict regimen of diet & exercise.

When I watch romantic comedies, I start to get a little hopeful, even a little envious, until the thought "That only happens to skinny people" pops up and realigns my thinking. It's okay that I don't have a Prince Charming because I'm fat.

So what happens when I reach my goal weight and I'm still single? How then do I justify it to myself and protect my self-esteem? At what point do I have to face the possibility that maybe it's the Crazy that makes men forget my phone number, magically get back together with an ex-girlfriend, or spontaneously move to Asia?

Here's the real kicker, though: my fear of being alone because I'm unlovable is only overshadowed by my fear of falling in love and having my heart shattered... again. So I have TWO emotional reasons to stay fat: to protect my self-image (sounds contradictory, doesn't it?) and to protect my heart from being vulnerable... to be insulated!

But that's not what He wants, so the journey continues.

sleeping in the light

We who walk the broken ground
Who stand and who fall down again
Who just want to live
And we who wander in a dream
Who look but can’t see through the night
Sleeping in the light
We wait for you who spoke the morning
~Sarah Reeves "awaken"

These lyrics have struck a chord with me recently. My church often talks about being "awake" and living intentionally... I don't feel like I have been doing that as of late.

I'm not sure when I started falling back into old habits: living passively, letting things happen rather than being active in my own life, giving in to addiction(s) with little to no fight. But here I am, 3AM on a Sunday morning, reviewing the events of Saturday with more than a little regret. I have been awake for just over twelve hours, which means I slept until... well, you do the math. I ate, napped, and meandered around on the internet for a LONG time, making less than stellar choices about what I put into my brain and stomach.

And now I know that *if* I make it to church in less than seven hours, it will be with a seriously reduced capacity to pay attention... something I have chided others for fairly recently (sorry for the hypocrisy, you know who you are).

What am I doing?! I'm sleeping in the light. I've been lulled into complacency and fallen asleep. It's happened so slowly that I didn't even notice it. But now I am missing the beautiful daylight and only yawning awake just as the darkness falls. And the darkness is filled with everything I've tried to put behind me.

Jesus, please come and wake me up again. Show me what I do not see, show me what I am doing through Your eyes. Take my hand and lead me back into the light. Come and get me.

in remembrance of Him

I attended a friend's church awhile back, and I remember keenly the pastor's apology to visitors, saying "This is not how we normally do things, but today's entire service will be communion." He then led us in a meditation on this sacrament. We had glasses of juice and bagels, and he encouraged us to really think about communion as a daily discipline. He asked "What if every time we ate and drank, we did so in remembrance of Him?"

That service stuck with me and I've often thought back on it. What if I thought of Him before every morsel? What if I pictured Him in the room with me, sitting at the table or standing over the sink, as the case may be... How would that change my behavior?

So often I think that no one sees me when I binge. Some people see the aftermath-- the dead soldiers of cookie boxes and pretzel bags, but few people have ever seen me in the act. Yet, there is One who always sees me, His name is El Roi. I want to know what He feels when He sees me engaging in this behavior.

Maybe that would change the way I feel...

death of [a permutation of] a dream

Proverbs 13:12 "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is the tree of life"

I've been pondering my addiction(s) today, as I've been feeling like they are getting the best of me. I confess that I've been thinking hopeless thoughts, musing that these thorns are more a part of me than the petals, that I haven't been winning the battle, that any ground I've gained is minuscule compared to what remains to be conquered.

But then He reminded me of an event that happened about a month ago...

[hold hope down
don't give it light
some things can't live
without the night]

First, some background:
In the past decade, I've had quite a few dreams that have burgeoned and then burst. This led me to a place where I did not dare to dream, assuming that my hopes would be dashed. It was not a terribly unhappy place-- low expectations yield high satisfaction. Yet, I was so guarded against hope that my life seemed to be on pause. I lived day to day with no thoughts of tomorrow.

Then an emotional breakthrough occurred, a little more than two years ago. God used circumstances and two very dear friends to guide me to my knees, and He broke my heart wide open. All the callouses that had formed to protect me from feeling began to be peeled away. And in the days that followed, He planted a seed in me. That seed was a dream-- a dream of being healthy to do the things He wanted me to, and also of being loved by someone for who I am, without fear. It was a spark that ignited my drive to get up and begin taking my life back. I started exercising and trying to spend more time with God by cutting out parts of my life that weren't healthy for me at that time.

But before long, I started shifting my newfound hope about love towards one particular person. I spent a lot of time daydreaming about him, and he became the reason for a lot of my seemingly "good" choices. Fast-forward to a month ago when we saw each other, and it became clear that the "dream" I had created was only a crayon representation of a Monet. I took the beautiful hope that God gave me and brought it down to my size, fit it into my life-box, and then had a meltdown when it didn't pan out. When that [permutation of a] dream died, so did my motivation to get healthy, spiritually and physically. Not surprisingly, I have seen an intense resurgence of my addiction(s) in the last four weeks.

Now that I'm seeing this, I have to make a choice. Do I give up and give in? Or do I choose to chase a dream that is unclear, but that I know is from God?

fasting

My church has called a fast today. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled about fasting because I love food! I haven't eaten since midnight, and I slept til roughly eleven... so true fasting hours so far come to a grand total of a little over three. Pathetic. I know that fasting is a discipline that is supposed to bring you closer to Christ by drawing you away from earthly things. For me it always becomes a battle of the wills. My stomach speaks louder than the holy spirit... pretty much always.
So why am I fasting? Maybe to prove something to myself? To be part of the in-group? Maybe... Notice that neither of these reasons point me to my Maker. But at the same time, I am being faithful to the exhortation of leadership.

The culmination of the fast will be a service tonight to seek breakthrough by pausing from our daily lives. I thought that it meant breakthrough for our church but now I'm wondering if maybe there is a breakthrough waiting for me... freedom from these chains of addiction I've gotten so used to slugging around. Maybe His voice is trying to breakthrough the static and I just need to press pause to hear Him.

Here's hoping...

begin at the beginning

I've been inspired by a friend to start writing down my struggle. I don't know if it will help anyone, but I think it will help me to get clarity.

Let me start by saying that I have an addictive personality and a serious lack of self-discipline. I could go into theories about what could have caused these traits in me, but the blame-game and resulting victim mentality are actually kind of counterproductive. So instead, I will just talk about where I am, rather than try to figure out how I got here.

Some of my vices are obvious, some not so obvious. I love food. I especially like salty and sweet carbohydrates. I tend to binge on things like cereal, crackers, pretzels, cookies. When I lived with roommates, I just didn't buy that stuff. Occasionally I would lust after other people's carbs, but generally I kept my hands to myself. Once I added exercise into the mix, I started losing weight, and it felt good.

BUT now I am back living at home in the land of free-flowing carbohydrates... and I can't get enough. I've tried begging my parents not to buy that stuff but they keep saying "You just need to have self-control." So far, that's not working. I still exercise, so the overall effect on my weight is not very noticeable, but it is creeping back slowly. It's only a matter of time. Eating back every calorie I burn (and more!) is not only pointless, it's dangerous. If I stay at this size, the physical activity that stands between me and Jabba-hood will eventually get too hard for my joints. Exercise alone is not enough.

So what do I do? How do I stare down that box of wheat thins and say "You Don't Own Me!" when I really feel like they do? When I open the cupboard and see those colorful containers, I have a bodily reaction similar to that of an alcoholic surveying assorted bottles of booze. Food is a drug to me.

The addiction in and of itself is a problem, but the greater issue is that it stands between me and what God wants for me. I know He has big plans for me, plans which require me to be healthy. Yet I feel powerless against food!

So, that's where I am. Sigh.